Sega dev: The console market can only get smaller

One of the most successful Japanese console game developers has predicted that the console market will continue to shrink and in its place will rise a stronger, dominant portable games market.

“Consoles – PS3, PS4, Xbox 360-2 – the market for those will get smaller, and the main market will become portable games,” Super Monkey Ball and Yakuza creator Toshihiro Nagoshi told PSM3, as reported by CVG.

“I don’t think consoles will disappear, but more and more people will use home PCs for gaming, and a long time in the future it will just be PCs and mobile phones, and eventually mobiles will become just as powerful as games consoles.”

And of course, as a games developer Nagoshi is keen to stress that from his perspective the biggest change this represents is one of interaction and control.

“Right now, that means either buttons or touchscreens – those are the only two interfaces we have,” he argued. “So I think the next big evolution will be the introduction of a new type of interface.

“Sure, we have voice input, but voice will never become the main input. So I think that whoever can figure out that new type will be victorious.

“It’s strange the number of buttons has increased and never decreased. So that means we need to reset things, somehow. I think your hands will always be directly involved. That will never change. It’ll be something you can touch.”

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